This invention relates to a system for monitoring and collecting data on audience participation and a device for use in such a system. The invention is especially, but not exclusively, applicable to a system for collecting data on a the viewing habits of television viewers and transmitting the data to a central location.
It is important to networks, television stations, programmers and advertisers to determine the numbers of viewers watching particular programs. Such information could be used to determine market share and the ratings of particular programs. Since the beginning of television attempts have been made to gather information on the viewing habits of television viewers. The earlier systems were quite simple and included the keeping of a diary by a number of randomly selected viewers. These viewers were asked to enter into their diary a record of the channels viewed and the start time and end time for the viewing of each channel. Since diaries are limited to the amount of space that can be provided, viewing records are not very precise and short intervals of tuning may not even be recorded by the survey respondents. The diaries would be collected usually by mail and would take up to several weeks to process and provide the data to the people conducting the survey. This system was cumbersome and required considerable effort by the viewer selected. In addition there was a considerable time lag between the showing of a program and the determination of the results. For the system to give accurate results, it was essential that the viewer keeping the diary be able to read and comprehend fairly complex instructions as well as to know which station is being watched among the ever increasing number of stations available. The average cable TV subscriber can have 40 or more channels available, and it is increasingly difficult to recognize channels and record them accurately in a diary. While the diary system is still in use today it is the subject of much methodological criticism, especially with the increasing amount of "junk" mail and people being more hesitant to participate in surveys.
Subsequent systems became more efficient and more complex. For example, U.S. Pat. No. 4,566,030-Nickerson et al., issued Jan. 21, 1986, describes a television viewer data collection system having a remote unit at each viewer location with a viewer control for each television receiver. The viewer control includes a channel selector and the viewer control is wired to either a cable converter or the television receiver and the remote unit. The remote unit includes a clock, a microprocessor and a memory. As the viewer operates the viewer control to turn on the associated television receiver and to select a channel, the time and the selected channel are stored in the memory of the remote unit. The remote unit is connected via a modem to a telephone line. At a preselected time the remote unit initiates a call to a central location and, when a connection is established, the remote unit transmits the data stored in its memory to a central location. It will be seen that this type of television data collection system is a great improvement over much earlier systems. It does not require the viewer to perform the onerous task of making repeated diary entries. It does, however, require equipment to be connected to both the television receiver (or cable converter) and a telephone line.
There are many shortcomings in this approach, as a result. The equipment and the installation of the equipment tends to be quite expensive. The system is geared only to measure viewing done in the primary residence of the persons chosen to be in the study. Because of the complexity of recruiting and installing the equipment in each household in the survey, the households are asked to participate in the research for months and on occasion for sometimes more than a year. This means there is a possibility that, among other things, the viewing data can be subjected to certain biases.
Other monitoring systems are known, for example only, the systems described in Canadian Patent No. 1,105,128-Thompson, issued Jul. 14, 1981 and in U.S. Pat. No. 4,107,734-Percy et al, issued Aug. 15, 1978. These systems require connection to either the television receiver being monitored, the antenna or cable converter, or a telephone line.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,718,106 (Weinblatt) issued Jan. 5, 1988 discloses a portable signal detector which responds to audible signals to record automatically the fact that the carrier of the unit is listening to the station transmitting the audible signals. The system is passive, i.e. requires no direct input from the carrier. A drawback, however, is that the device could be activated without the listener being present or paying attention to the receiver. Moreover, Weinblatt proposes to use an audible signal which could be a distraction.
An object of the present invention is to overcome many of the foregoing problems.